Glenn Hoddle a visionary whose face did not fit in muscular English game

On Thursday, I spent the evening discussing creativity in sport with Danny Cipriani. The fly half has spent a career unlocking defences with precision-guided passes and cerebral lay-offs, a methodology that is imaginative, aesthetic and stirring.

And yet this brand of creativity has never fitted comfortably into the English game. For those grounded in the Victorian ideal of muscular sport, where virtue is to be found in sweat, blood and toil, it is too mercurial. When a player unlocks a defence with an intelligent pass or flick, it seems almost sinful. Perhaps this is one reason why Cipriani has started only five Tests for England.

Nobody has endured this prejudice more, however, than Glenn Hoddle. The midfielder suffered a heart attack on Saturday while working